Iraqi Kurdistan pressing ahead with oil shipments: Spokesperson

Vessels transporting northern Iraqi oil from Turkey to Western markets have arrived at their destination and have sold their supplies, an official from the Northern Iraqi regional government said Monday.

Northern Iraqi Regional Government spokesperson Sefin Dizayi, speaking to Erbil-based TV Rudaw, denied claims that the United States had turned away the vessel transporting the oil.

The controversial oil tanker reportedly turned around last week, after US authorities threatened to slap any buyers with legal suits.

"We will not step back," Dizayi said, stressing that the autonomous Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq remained determined to export its oil despite Baghdad’s opposition. He also added that the oil sale is taking place in accordance with international standards.

Tension has been on the rise since January when the Kurdish region first began exporting its oil to Turkey independently from the central government. Last week, however, Kurdish authorities went even further when they moved to sell the oil directly from Turkish ports, in a show of economic independence that angered the central authority in Baghdad.

Turkey has denied any wrongdoing, but this has so far failed to appease Baghdad.

"The oil sold is not Turkey's, it is Iraq's," Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said on Monday. "Whether it is sold to Mediterranean markets or to the US or to China, Turkey doesn't have the authority to decide on whom to sell the Iraqi oil.

"Our Iraqi brothers" should share the revenues from the oil exports according to a scheme that they jointly agree on, said Yildiz. "The revenues will help Iraq's normalisation process."

In the latest escalation, Baghdad last Friday took the matter to the International Chamber of Commerce where it is seeking $250m in damages from the Turkish state-owned pipeline company.

"We believe Turkey has been driven by greed to try to lay [its] hands on cheap Iraqi oil," Hussein al-Shahristani, the Iraqi deputy prime minister responsible for energy affairs Shahristani, and a former oil minister, told AFP.

"They have facilitated this smuggling, and obviously this has undermined the relationship [between the two countries.]”

Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz, said last month that more than one million barrels of oil were coming from the Iraqi region and stored in Ceyhan, Turkey, before being transported to the Western market. He also said Italy and Germany were among the buyers of the northern Iraqi oil.

Both the authorities in Erbil and Baghdad insist they are acting in line with Iraq’s constitution which designates how energy profits should be sold.